Major Xbox One System Update Coming Next Week, Another Due In March

The Xbox One entertainment system only arrived back in November, but with the dust having settled and the early adopters busily getting to grips with the new interface, Microsoft has officially announced that the first system update is headed next week. The Redmond company, which only yesterday unveiled Satya Nadella as its new CEO, has a lot going on at the moment with the Windows 8.1 Update 1 also in development, but as per Xbox LIVE’s very own Major Nelson, the forthcoming update will include quite a few noteworthy enhancements.

The universal update will be pushed out to every single Xbox One owner that signs into their machine, and should offer some noticeable improvements from the get go.

Being such a prompt, initial update, much of the work is under the hood, and so focuses on stability and performance rather than introducing any grandiose new features. This should be considered a good thing, however, for at such an early stage, it’s always important that those lingering bugs and issues are ironed out, and even if you haven’t noticed anything untoward as yet, the fixes and tweaks should lessen the chance of any such problems arising in the future.

If you’re a big user of the new Kinect sensor, which ships with the Xbox One console, you can expect more responsiveness and fluidity when using voice controls, although the specifics are being kept under wraps until closer to the update’s release time.

Aside from Kinect improvements, users will also be able to mange their storage more efficiently, as well as their download queue of incoming content. Entities like My Games and My Apps will be separated in order to make things less congested, and you will also be able to select the order in which you want content to load.

As far as home comforts from the Xbox 360 experience go, the battery power indicator will be reintroduced, and from Feb. 11th onwards, you’ll also be able to use your USB keyboard with your console.

Additionally, with Titanfall’s release on March 4th, Microsoft will be delivering a subsequent update to bolster multiplayer systems so they don’t buckle under the strain of what is one of the year’s most eagerly-anticipated titles.